Few questions from "Accelerated C++"

Hi all,

I'm going through Accelerated C++ (great book by the way!) and I've written a simple program (similar to the padding program on Chapter 2) but there's a warning from gcc (with the options -Wall -pedantic) and cannot figure out how to solve it.

The problem is that there is a comparison between signed and unsugned integers in the line:

Code:

if (r==pad+1 && c==pad+1) {

I've tried defining pad as

Code:

string::size_type pad=0;

instead of int, but that doesn't work. Can someone please explain why I get this warning message and how to avoid it?

Here's my program:

Code:

#include<iostream>
#include<string>

using std::cin;
using std::cout;
using std::endl;
using std::string;

int main()
{
        cout << "Please enter your name: ";
        string name;
        cin >> name;
        const string greeting = "Hello " + name + "!";

        cout << "Please enter how much padding you'd like: ";
        int pad=0;
        cin >> pad;

        const int rows=2*pad+3;
        const string::size_type cols=greeting.size()+2*pad+2;

        for (int r=0; r!=rows; ++r) {
                string::size_type c=0;
                while (c!=cols) {
                        if (r==pad+1 && c==pad+1) {
                                cout << greeting;
                                c+=greeting.size();
                        }
                        else if (r==0 || r==rows-1 || c==0 || c==cols-1) {
                                cout << "*";
                                ++c;
                        }
                        else {
                                cout << " ";
                                ++c;
                        }
                }
                cout << endl;
        }
        return 0;
}

Thanks

Spiros

ps I'm sure I'll have plenty more questions in the near future so I'll keep posting them on this thread instead of creating new threads etc..

Even if you declare 'pad' as 'string::size_type' 'r' would still be an 'int'.

Soma

An int can be both positive and negative. An unsigned int (or string::size_type) can contain only positive values. Their ranges don't overlap, hence the warning.

Basically you'll need to make all the int's unsigned (or string::size_type). Neither the number of rows, columns or paddings being negative wouldn't make any sense.

Thanks, the idea of overlapping ranges makes sense. I tried using long int's so that they become unsigned, instead of int's but that didn't work. In the book the declerations are:

Code:

int r (inside the for loop)
const int pad
string::size_type c

so I don't understand why the c==pad+1 works in the book since c is unsigned and pad is signed.

The book might just be ignoring the warning.

If you want your int to be unsigned, use unsigned int. Using long int just makes the type be potentially able to hold more values, it doesn't change whether it is signed. You can have unsigned long or signed long as well.


>> I'll keep posting them on this thread instead of creating new threads etc.
If they're not related to this question, feel free to post a new thread. It's easier for new topics to get full answers than posting a bunch of different questions on one thread.

It's better to compare types of the same sizes (eg, compare size_t to size_t), to avoid unexpected bitebacks.

Originally Posted by Daved

The book might just be ignoring the error.

I don't think it's an error. A good compiler will warn, though.

cheers, that helped a lot. I thought that long int's where unsigned, but it seems I read the manual wrong. I changed the variables in question to unsigned int's and there's no problem at all now.

Thanks!